US election results: Five things to watch for to stay ahead of the calls
analysis
Donald Trump, with his wife Melania, visits his campaign headquarters to thank workers on election day in West Palm Beach.
After an incredibly tumultuous campaign, marked by two assassination attempts, a presidential withdrawal and a last-minute switch of candidates, election day 2024 is finally here.
Americans face the choice between their current vice-president, and a former commander-in-chief.
Will Donald Trump make an extraordinary political comeback, four years after he was voted out of the White House? Or will Kamala Harris's remarkably short campaign deliver her victory?
Here are five things to watch out for as the day unfolds.
All roads run through Pennsylvania…
With 19 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania is the biggest prize of the seven swing states.
If Harris wins in the birthplace of US democracy, and the other so-called "blue wall" states of Michigan and Wisconsin follow, she could be within reach of the 270 electoral college votes needed to enter the White House – even if Trump wins all the remaining swing states.
The clincher could be what's become known as Nebraska's "blue dot". The midwestern state is one of only two which doesn't take a winner-takes-all approach to awarding its electoral college votes.
Instead, three of its five votes are allocated according to the results in its individual congressional districts.
Trump won four of the five on offer in Nebraska in 2020 but lost the fifth, centred around the city of Omaha, to Joe Biden. If Harris wins there again, on top of the blue wall, it could be enough to get her over the line.
The former president could also get to 270 votes, with the help of Pennsylvania, if he wins in both North Carolina and Georgia.
If he loses Pennsylvania, it's still possible he could get to 270 by sweeping what's known as the "sun belt" and picking up one of the blue wall states.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the possible scenarios, and we could see any combination of wins and losses on both sides.
But the path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue becomes a lot easier for either candidate if they can get its namesake state in the bag.
… but other swing states will also provide clues
Trump has been spending a lot of time in North Carolina in the final days of the race, with one campaign official providing a blunt assessment of the reason why.
"If there's one state that could bite you in the a**, it's North Carolina," they told NBC News.
The former president won North Carolina in both 2016 and 2020. At the last election, it was the only swing state he picked up over Biden.
But Democrats who were pessimistic about their chances there under the current president now consider it to be very much in play with Harris.
The results in North Carolina and another battleground, Georgia, are expected to be some of the first of the competitive states to start coming in.
There's no guarantee either of them will actually be called on the night. In 2020, they each took more than a week.
But the early results in both states could give us a sense of whether the contest overall is as close as polls have been predicting – or whether one candidate looks to have a clear advantage.
Turnout, early voting and exit polls
Voting isn't compulsory in the United States, like it is in Australia, meaning both candidates face the big challenge of convincing people to actually show up for them.
About two thirds of the eligible American population voted in 2020, the highest rate of the 21st century.
We won't know for some time exactly how many people end up voting in this election.
But more than 80 million people had already cast their ballots before election day and the campaigns have been searching for clues in the information they've been able to glean from them.
We of course don't yet know who each person voted for. But some states publish early voting data, broken down into categories like party registration, race, age and gender.
Those statistics so far suggest Republicans have increased their share of the early voting pool, despite Trump's mixed messaging on whether it was prone to fraud.
However, it's not yet clear whether Republicans will boost their turnout overall, or if people who would have voted anyway on election day decided to get in ahead of time.
The data also suggests women outnumbered men in early voting, a sign that has buoyed Democrats given the significant gender gap at this election.
But we'll have to wait to see how many women voted for Harris over Trump. And women have turned out at higher rates in presidential elections for decades.
As in-person voting gets underway, exit polls will provide the next set of insights into how voters are feeling.
These polls are surveys of Americans after they've cast their ballots and can be used to identify trends around voter sentiment across particular demographics.
Are women turning out in big numbers for Harris, for example? Has Trump made inroads with Black Americans? Which way are young people leaning?
The exit polls can help to paint a picture of the mood and help our understanding of why results are shaping up the way they are. We should start seeing them land around 9am AEDT.
In for the long haul
For anyone anxiously waiting for a result in Australia's afternoon, a word of warning – it could be days before we know who the winner is.
In 2020 it took four days for US media outlets to declare that Biden had won Pennsylvania, a victory that tipped him over the edge of the 270 electoral college votes needed.
Each state runs their election system differently, meaning they have their own rules on how and when ballots are counted.
Some states allow mail-in ballots to be processed ahead of time, for example, while others prevent them from being opened until election day.
If the results are very close in particular states, there could also be demands on both sides for recounts.
Bottom line: the closer the contest is, the longer it could take.
Having said that, there's a pretty broad expectation that Trump could again prematurely claim victory on the night – even if he's not guaranteed to win.
The former president pulled the same move at the last election and has spent the past four years falsely claiming he was the rightful victor.
Democrats say they're ready for this scenario. Harris has urged voters "to not fall for his tactic" and her party is preparing to flood social and traditional media with calls for patience if the results are still unknown.
But any period of limbo, without a clear outcome, could escalate tensions across the country.
Signs of trouble
Trump has been laying the groundwork to again claim he was cheated, if the election doesn't go his way.
He's urged his supporters to turn out in numbers that would make the count "too big to rig", arguing the only way he'd lose is if his opponents cheat.
Trump has already zeroed in on Pennsylvania, where investigations have been launched into potentially problematic voter registration forms.
Local officials insist the identification of these issues show their systems are working but we can expect to hear a lot more about incidents like this as the days and weeks go on.
Security has been stepped up at polling places and counting centres, with some jurisdictions using panic buttons and bullet-proof glass to try to protect election workers.
Another flashpoint could emerge when it comes to certifying results, which under the US system needs to be done at the local, state and national level.
Every stage of that process is politicised, and there are concerns Trump's allies could try to block certification in some areas if the results aren't favourable to him.
Casting ahead, there have been steps taken to try to prevent a repeat of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, when Congress will certify the outcome.
After Trump's vice-president Mike Pence was pressured to try to block Biden's victory in 2021, the law was changed to clarify that the VP doesn't have the power to do so.
And authorities in the nation's capital are taking a much more cautious approach to the period in between the election and inauguration. Security has already been enhanced in Washington DC, where a number of businesses have also been boarded up.
Election day marks the end of an extraordinary campaign, and many Americans have spent months longing for it to be over.
But there's nervousness here, too, and an open question over whether the end to one divisive period in US history could signal the beginning of another.
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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